Yogis, Dakinis, and Yaks! Oh, my!

Sorry, I know it's been a long time since I last wrote. Things haven't actually been too busy here, except on the weekends, but the internet and the electricity have gotten rather sketchy, often going out several times a day for anywhere from an hour to three hours.

Ok, so the last time I wrote, I had been to Drikung monastery, and had a blast, although difficult time climbing to see the sky burial site. Well, when Stephanie and I returned, we met Mr. Hong, a monk studying here, and he told us that we would go to Drikung together, since one of his masters is at Drikung, and we should meet him. On Friday, immediately after class, five of us, and Mr. Hong, piled into his car with our scant belongings and left for the monastery, where we would be staying the night, before going on to Terdrom nunnery and Ganden monastery the next day.

In an effort to make the most of our time, Mr. Hong even had the cafeteria pack a lunch for us to eat on the way, so about two hours into our drive, we stopped at a rather scenic spot on the side of the road (what, in the Tibetan countryside is not scenic?) and unpacked our lunch. While we were eating, with mountains on one side, and a rather small, picturesque monastery on the other side, a group of men, going home from somewhere, came upon us eating, and decided to walk up to us and watch. That was an interesting experience. I never knew eating could be a spectator sport. Here, though, especially when the eaters are foreign, it is.

After lunch, and after our friends continued on their way, we continued to the monastery. When we arrived, we immediately visited the main temple of the monaster, Stephanie and I greeting some of the folks we had met previously. Then, acquiring a resident of the monastery as a guide, we began our ascent up the mountain to meet Mr. Hong's master.

Now, little did we know that there would be climbing involved in this venture, but we should have. In Tibet, there is little that does not involve climbing. So, as we made our way up the side of the mountain above the monastery, I thought I was gonna die. The path was quite steep, and rather narrow in places. Furthermore, it did not help that Mr. Hong is as proficient at mountain climbing as any Tibetan and booked it up the path, where he and our guide would sit chuckling at my lack of abilities and breath.

Eventually, we made it to our destination, a small hut where Mr. Hong's master has lived for something like 30 years. In defense of this (for me) really horrible climb up the mountain, we were granted the opportunity to actually go inside the hut to perform our prostrations, meet this yogi, and converse with him, something that the pilgrims who visit him do not even get to do. Instead, they perform their prostrations outside the hut, and give their offerings and receive their blessings through a window.

So, we entered, and the six of us stood in line, waiting to make our prostrations and offerings. I was fourth to make prostrations and offerings. (On that note, I would like to say that I practiced doing prostrations in my room the night before, and despite that, I'm sure I looked like an uncoordinated idiot.) After which, there were two behind me before we were all crouched rather uncomfortably in a room the size of a small walk-in closet. Now, one of the nice things about this meeting was that we were supposed to speak with this man, who despite his 50 some years on this earth, had a look of complete innocence in his eyes. Unfortunately for us, he did not understand our Tibetan, and did not speak Chinese, so, after about 5 minutes of looking at each other and smiling, we left.

As we exited the hut, it started snowing, not uncommon at Drikung in the middle of the afternoon. For some strange reason, I thought that since we had met this yogi, we would be going back down the mountain. Silly me! Instead, we went across to the sky burial site, a visit to which I would deny no one. It is a powerful place. This time, unlike my previous visit, because we were with someone from the monastery, he was kind enough, and happy to borrow the key to unlock the gate, and he let us into the site.

We entered this holy sky burial site, one of the most important in Tibet. It was quite intense to walk up to the circle of stones where the ceremony is actually performed, and to step over bits of bloody human bone, and to watch the ravens pick at them. And of course, the experience is compounded by the smell. It is so completely different from the smell of the animals at the butcher stalls, and totally inundated the space. For all of that, however, it has a beautiful view, being near the edge of the mountain. As we made ready to depart, having completed a circumambulation around the site, things were a bit eerie with vultures and ravens flying overhead and dogs howling.

After this, I was sure we were going back down the mountain, but Stephanie thought it would be nice to do a complete circumambulation of the monastery, so we continued along the mountain, past the monastery...quite a bit past it because we missed the path back down. However, we were able to backtrack and make our way down. Finally, we settled down in the little restaurant and ate a lot of yak momos. Eventually, Doris and I went up to our room in the guest house, ready for sleep at 8:30pm, knowing that Mr. Hong wanted to leave the monastery at 7am. Unfortunately, it was so cold that I didn't get to sleep for quite a long time.

At 6:30, we were up, and getting ready for a new day of adventures with the unexpected Mr. Hong.

Part II will be posted later...